Boost your outdoor experience with tips on how to pack, cook and clean up food

You've got your site clean and organized, but what about meals and food storage? Nicole Botelho is a chef at Portland City Grill in Portland, Oregon, who also spends more than 60 nights a year camping along the West Coast. Here, her advice for prepping your "kitchen."

2. Make cooking easy. This is not the moment for New! Exciting! Outdoor! Foods! Lean toward fewer-ingredient meals, like pasta with meat sauce. Use ready-to-cook or precooked meats, and precut veggies.

3. Cook early. Plan to do all chopping and cooking well before it gets dark, so you can clearly see that your meat is done, and find that wine opener that landed, um, somewhere…

4. Use a good cooler. This is your fridge, so buy one that's good at sealing in the cold. Fill it with ice and add your perishables. Buy eggs in a plastic-foam container so they don't break.

5. Clean dishes properly.Three steps: First, scrape food remains into a plastic bag that you can empty into a nearby garbage can. Second, boil a pot of water, and pour it into a washtub filled with mild biodegradable suds (they must be biodegradable since you'll be dumping them—Dr. Bronner's is good) and a rinse pan. Save extra water for refilling. Third, scrub dishes with a sponge in one pan and rinse in the other. Then walk a few hundred yards away from the campsite and pour the water across the foliage (dumping straight down causes erosion).

6. Bring good coffee. "Coffee increases in importance and value when you're camping," jokes Botelho. "You think, 'Oh, I'll just do instant.' But don't do it."